Monday 30 June 2008

Bill Gates on Windows

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues. Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up. This site is so slow it is unusable. It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45. These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear. They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing. So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist? So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

Continues on http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp

Sunday 29 June 2008

I am still shaking and sweating...

I woke up with a lot of difficulty. Had half of my breakfast, jumped on my bike and cycled to the station one eye closed, one eye hurting yet open. Sunday is a good day to cycle in the morning, but not a good day to wake up early and go to work. Can't complain thou. It's one more of those jobs I do. I'm off to hyde park to play games and talk to people. A regular fun day in the life of a promo girl. No quite.

Who's on today? We ask each other. Bangles. haha. And it's my break! Cool. It was pretty amazing to see them live. I sang manic monday, walk like an egyptian, all tunes with them. They rock. I had me burger and went back to work. Rather good sunny day, I thought. But I didn't really know what was waiting for me around the corner...

Stranglers are on at 19:15! Ha! I like The stranglers. No, no. I LOVE The Stranglers! I suddenly realized what was about to happen. Shivers up my spine. I was about to see The stranglers!!!! But hold on. Am I? I had my hour off already. hummm... I've got a plan. I repeat "The stranglers are great" all through the day like a drunken parrot. I look into the event manager's eyes at 19:15. I look deeper into his eyes. He holds my hands and whispers: Go.

I run like an idiot to the tent where they are and as soon as I enter it, out of breath, I feel the energy of that place exploding my brain like a cosmic convulsion. They are all yang, manly, ubber alpha rock skillfully orchestrated, lusty rock that is. they love it!! And we love it extra. They start with "Get a grip on Yourself" and I nearly faint. It's just too much. Waves of heat emanating from their instruments. So manly. They gang rape our musical brains with a classic after the other. They played all my favourites! Strange Little Girl, Nice N' Sleezy, Always the Sun, Walk on by, and of course... Golden Brown! The crowd started cheering and clapping and screaming in the middle of the song, no waiting til the end, as they looked at each other with an accomplished smile on their faces, all of us wanting to say that was intense, that was pure rock n' roll. We're taken, loved up, sweating devotion.

The older guys around me were very surprised with my love for The Stranglers, me singing all the lyrics. One of them shouted at me: "you're too young! How come?" hahaha. but they were proud and happy to see me enjoying their favourite band. The Stranglers were then, now, always, everyone's favourite band.

Sunday 15 June 2008